TAPS is a survivor-run group that helps victims of sex trafficking to break free. You can reach us at https://www.facebook.com/TraffickingandProstitutionServicesOnline/ We also help family members and other loves ones to "retrieve" someone they feel is either trapped into sex work. If you are a parent - you can get help at www.swanfellowship.webs.com. This is the author's personal opinion and since written in the USA is protected under rights of free speech. (702) 488-1127.

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Saturday, July 16, 2016

SHOW OF SUPPORT TO VEDNITA CARTER TESTIFYING AT PARLIMENT

Think about where you are now. Then check out these early talk shows from 1987 - 1992. http://traffickingandprostitutionservices.blogspot.com/2016/07/interviews-from-1980s-and-early-90s.html

This was the first time the American public was hearing anyone talk about the idea we were not "Happy Hookers", that most of us could not quit alone, and there were those of us being "forced" (remember we didn't have the word "trafficking back in that time time). to be in prostitution who required someone to step in and GET HELP TO GET US OUT.

Remember how we used to be viewed only and solely as either "criminals" who needed to be locked up and chased off the block because we were a "threat to decent society" OR we were thought of like we were all living large at the Playboy Mansion.

Remember Dorothy Stratton? She was in Playboy and Peter Bogdonovich was a director who had wanted to make her the next Marilyn Monroe. Her pimp/husband had picked her up working at a hamburger joint at 16 years old, got her to run off and marry him, while he pimped her. When he saw his meal ticket leaving him for Peter - he took a shotgun to both her and himself.

The media looked at this like a unique case of "domestic violence" rather than what it was - a case of woman trapped in the sex industry with no way out provided her. It was one pimp or the other and she had no way out.

People thought because she didn't have a gun to her head 24/7, didn't have a needle in her arm, and wasn't standing on a street corner that she didn't need help. Society looked at her like she had an "ideal" life back then - not that she was trapped within the sex industry between two pimps with no way out.

Why? Because what she did was "legal". We've seen how the drug addict knows no difference between the street drug and precriptions. So too can sex trafficking exist where sex work is legal and illegal. It can also exist within the sex INDUSTRY - not limited to prostitution. Dorothy was a porn model and performer and what she did was legal. Her husband couldn't be arrested for "trafficking" because what he was doing was also perfectly legal.

This is why men like Sheldon Adelson, Dennis Hof, Joe Conforte, Joe Richards, Lance Gilman, and even Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook and Google with Oculus - the 3D virtual interactive porn process courtesy of Google are trying so desperately to try and make people think sex trafficking is limited to street prostitution - and not something inherent within the sex industry itself which is far more broad than just the act of physical intercourse for money.

Which is why we can't limit help to only those men and women arrested for prostitution anymore than just the men caught offering cash for sex. That limited system wouldn't have helped Dororthy Stratton. Nor the ground breaking case of Linda Lovelace when she told the world she'd been forced to film "Deep Throat" while her pimp/husband pointed a gun at her off camera to make her do the film on a mob financed set where not one person would lift a finger to stop what was happening.

How has this changed from this year when James Deen filmed his rape of a woman anally while the others on the exclusively male set of the "film" APPLAUDED when she was spouting blood everywhere from her ruptured colon? All on the set of a legally produced film where prostitution wasn't even the issue. Nor was "force" for that matter. Not in the sense she voluntarily walked onto that set to shoot an adult film.

Then the AVN has the absolute balls to the wall nerve to tell yet another actress who said she was raped by Jamee Deen that if she didn't stand on stage next to him to present adult film awards that SHE'D BE in "violation of her contract and liable for legal damages!

Our hotline has been answering calls since 1987 now - and I can assure you more men and women are being barred from leaving the sex industry, legal or not, prostitution or not, because of porn photos of them online over arrest records for prostitution. Licenses and work permits are being refused because of one photo taken 10 years ago or longer which has a legal model release barring them from having the photos/video taken down.

Which has now gone to the whole next level of insanity when women now are being arrested for prostitution and labeled as "sex offenders" if they can't produce a "trafficker" to blame. Our fellowship right now has over 100 women being forced to tell their employers (if they can get an employer being labeled a sex offender) they are "registered sex offenders", their landlords, their neighbors, and they're being restricted as to where they live and even walk just like any child molester.

While men like Joohoon David Lee, a Homeland Security/ICE officer finally caught using his office to go to China, then Korea, fly his victims on taxpayer's money back to the USA right PAST LAX security now trained to identify sex trafficking victims who are sending back home his "competition", and then force them to work in massage parlors in Las Vegas while the trafficking task force had not only shut down, but was further blocking our involvement in the task force (for obvious reasons now). Then he's only charged with "bribery" because we STILL DON'T have laws on our books allowing us to charge him with trafficking and he's retiring on his pension and having gotten probation.

Not just for trafficking those women, blocking our outreach in the area which would might have helped those victims using his position on the trafficking task force, but also he's the reason why 24 women who the only way we could get them out of the private property they were housed in while being forced to work as prostitutes on mattresses on the floor, were released right back into the arms of their traffickers instead of being questioned by ICE to see if they were trafficking victims, and their VISA'S verified to see if they were even valid as is required by law for just that reason - to give them a chance to see if they were being trafficked or not.

But no - the men who need to be arrested aren't just "johns". http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/prostitute-reveals-new-details-bay-area-police-sex-scandal-article-1.2694945 But they're "johns" who are also cops. Cops who are also pimping this girl who was working as a prostitute clear back until she was 12 years old when she can't even "legally consent" so it's not just prostitution but in fact then rape. Cops in charge of the not only the trafficking task force which did everything in their power to shut own our local chapter in Oakland so we couldn't get help to this woman to leave this situation safely - but who were also in charge of the "dear john letter" campaign to "end demand".

Our protests this did NOTHING to "end demand" were ignored and shot down because of what they turned "end demand" into - legalized blackmail. Pay the cops or your face goes up on a billboard, your wife hears about it, your boss hears about it, and what's more important than the blackmail is the fact the "john letter end demand" program was used to shut down the "competition" so the cop/pimp had the "market" to himself.

Now who are the other "johns" going to take their money to while this is going on? Are they going to pay the cop/pimp to get a woman they know won't get them exposed, arrested, "shamed" - or are they going to risk arrest and public shame to go with their "competition"? Meaning how does the woman leave this?

Is she going to get arrested and put into an alternative sentencing program like Project Rose was doing? Not when the cops are calling her up telling her where not to go so she isn't arrested. Now was she being "warned" when this happens or further having her way out of this further blocked?

I ask you - how is Sex Workers Anonymous supposed to help a man or woman leave the sex industry when they're being forced to be there not only by a "pimp" or "trafficker", but by the police themselves? http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-officers-sexual-assault-20160217-story.html Cops who were raping them, forcing them to go back into sex work to get their "information", stalking them, and when our program members file complaints on their behalf to Internal Affairs WE'RE the ones being threatened by the cops with "5150" charges, stalking charges, TRO's filed, etc. Where even when we've recorded the threats we've got Chief's of Police threatening us with 5150 charges if we keep talking to these women reaching out to us for help. We've got reporters telling us if they write about this they'll be fired because their boss has threatened to fire them if they print the truth with some reporters saying they're even being physically threatened by cops.

Right now our programs' chapter leaders are finding themselves being threatened when they so much as even return these women's phone calls calling our hotline for help with things like 5150, or stalking charges. We have one chapter where the court came in, slapped her with a TRO, and then came and took her legally owned gun she had for protection, when a victim ran from these pimp/john/cops to her house asking for sanctuary. When that wasn't enough they went to her neighbors "investigating" her, her clients, her business associates, etc. Making it so hard for her that she had to pick up and move out of the city.

We've got prosecutors who stopped approving women from coming to our program instead of jail because they preferred to terrorize them with the idea of jail to get them to offer him sex instead of jail (Stuart Dunning).

Our Ohio chapter got shut out of the local trafficking task force there bacause they found it more lucrative to traffick teens in the safe house there right out of the program.

The traffickers aren't just using women as prostitutes either as their means of exploitation. Oh no - they're having them get hired at major media outlets such as CNN, Huffington and Washington Post, the LA Times and the OC Register so they can push their agendas in the media even further to get prostitution legalized, as well as make the public think trafficking doesn't exist within "legal" sex work.

It started with the media promoting Samoly Mam s "a sex trafficking survivor and advocate" when she was a "catfish". William Hillar being built up to get "Taken" presented as reality. Then we had the bogus "Kevin Brown" claiming h had "found God" and he had a "ranch out in the desert where he was taking women who choose to go with him to "be saved in 8 minutes".

Reporters who never questioned his address for his "church" was a bunch of empty doctor's offices. Nor why they were chasing after a 17 year old prostitute name "Sweets" they were trying to "take to the ranch for rehabilitation" when he's had no formal counseling training being a retired cop, instead of 20 minutes down the highway right to Children of the Night, who has a golden track record and facility after 30 years of providing wonderful help to juveniles with a fully properly trained staff. Those questions never seemed to come to the reporters mind. Nor why they were shunning any of our 30 years of experience and help in this so called "outreach" of theirs.

What's going on right now in the USA is totally mimicking what was going on with the drug cartel in Columbia during the 1990's. That's when the cartel owned the government, they knew every call going into the hotline and would dispatch goons to go and shut them up once making the call to the authorities, and the dealers weren't behind bars but actually in the government like we saw with Pablo Escobar.

Out here in Alameda I saw the HEAT task force spend $1,000,000 on billboards where instead of using hotlines like ours or Children of the Nights, they diverted calls to an answering service no one answered, and the website went to a bus schedule for six months. When I went to the Board of Supervisors to let them know this and offered to repair the problem for them - I was shunned and barred from even ATTENDING the task force meetings.

I watched while Snoop Dogg got up in the Rolling Stone magazine and BRAGGED about his "rolling TV brothel" where he "turned out whores from one coast to the next" as a trafficker. The law by the way does state consent doesn't matter nor does the receipt of money. Our hotline got a call from a Nevada senator ASKING US to do a rescue of a pregnant woman from Snoop's trafficking network at our expense and risk. When I asked why they didn't use their police and resources - I was told "we can't rescue her because if we did then we'd have to charge him wth trafficking".

And?

I've got victims of his ready, willing and eager to prosecute him for sex trafficking. BEGGING for his arrest. Yet not one prosecutor will even consider so much as a pandering charge. No - they step back and do nothing while Snoop's gone on to form a youth football league where he's hiring the young men as drivers for his youth football league and he's auditioning female teenage CHEERLEADERS for God's sake!

PLEASE VEDNITA - tell them what is really going on out there and how the whole system needs a complete overhaul. Michael Horowitz, the author of the Trafficking Act of 2000 which gave trafficking federal recognition in the first place - has said the "movement has been hijacked".

Let me tell you - while whole teams are being set up to go out and arrest men and women advertising prostitution on Craigslist and Backpage while COMPLETELY ignoring Sex Workers' Anonymous saying not only is this NOT the way to fight trafficking, but it sure isn't going to help these women exit prostitution and escape trafficking either - has anyone considered that's the POINT?

Just as big tobacco used to promote "youth prevention campaign" which in reality was marketing to tobacco to youth - guess what's happening to all those women being harassed about street and internet prostitution? THEY'RE TURNING TO WORK AT THE LEGAL BROTHELS where the Cupcake Girls has just cleared the way for those with prostitution convictions away so they can get licenses to work at the legal brothels and strip cubs.

The "john"? They're turning to OCULUS and other webcam options or things like Tinder which is impossible to track. The porn being banned from hotels? Just increasing subscriptions to Oculus. Just driving more women to go to work for Oculus where they "won't get arrested". But again while they're not getting arrested - they're also not being tested for HIV and they're not being court ordered into job training, counseling, and drug treatment so they can exit prostitution.

I've traced money for Turn Out the Red Light, Rachel Moran, and other so called "trafficking" programs where yes the money does trace back to donations from the Hunt Foundation, but it goes even deeper. In fact, every town where the Hunt Foundation has donated money to the local police force - trafficking has taken over that task force and trafficking is raging. Blackmail of the johns is racing. Our members, outreach workers, chapter leaders, and anyone trying to help the women to escape - they're being completely shunned and shut out by the police, the prosecutor's, the trafficking task forces, etc. Trafficking has taken over those same cities and there's no one to call for help. To prove this - even the police have filed a complaint against the police for blocking Internal Affairs complaints THEY'VE made being blocked by the powers that be by the ACLU - http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-lapd-union-lawsuit-20160519-snap-story.html

Lenin called it "controlled opposition". These traffickers WANT everyone out chasing the "johns" not THEM because then they can keep up their own cover, but also keep up their blackmail and pushing the johns TO the traffickers away from the independents!

What we're watching here is IDENTICAL to when Al Capone used to shut down all the bathtub gin manufacturers so he could get control over the bootleg booze and control the market. Identical to when he had the politicians and the police in his back pocket - which our UK group tells me it's 100 TIMES WORSE over there! Our members over there are also saying they've got all this evidence against the child traffickers and the child pedophiles - but they also can't get anyone to pull the trigger and go after them over there either.

Which we've always stayed out of Vednita - focusing only on getting help to those who asked us for it. But HOW are we supposed to do that when they come to us for help and then WE'RE BEING SLAPPED WITH TRO'S, 5150 charges, smear campaigns, and campaigns that make the way the Chinese tried to smear KFC with the rumors of the deep fried rats look like kids games? I say that because even I am getting emails from people sending me copies of screen shots where so called "trafficking survivors" in this field are going around telling anyone who will listen that I'm PIMPING - active tense. Sure no one believes this nonsense and that's why they send me the screenshot - but the callers are telling me the threats are quite clear - "talk to Jody and you can kiss your career goodbye"

I just wanted to send you those tapes to show you how things have changed in many ways - good and bad - to consider while you're testifying over there at Parliament. You go give 'em hell Vednita!

It would have been nice if we'd been invited and could have gone with you -but it's cool. Our members are getting used to people acting like they don't exist simply because they don't want to go in front of a camera and expose their family, kids, husband, co-workers, etc. to the way people react when they hear you used to be in sex work, or they are choosing to not let their pimps know where they are. I mean not every survivor wants to spread their face and name all over the internet - especially if they have school age children.

My support goes with you Vednita. I would have loved to come and cheer you on - but our invite got lost in the mail.

www.sexworkersanonymous.com

PS - in looking at the panel - I don't see any white or Asian faces. So once again are there any white or Asian women who testified - or are we back to making it appear only women of color are victims? I say that because I heard on a Democracy Today interview where Tim Wise posed the "quickest way for a movement to lose support is to make it appear to be for people of color" http://www.speakoutnow.org/speaker/wise-tim

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About Me

I've been helping men and women leave the sex industry since 1987. Some were forced - some were not. Some thought they weren't and with time realized they were. Some thought they were and with time realized they weren't. Which is why I just focus on this - if you want help to leave any part of the sex industry for any reason - just get in touch. I run Sex Workers Anonymous, Trafficking & Prostitution Services, as well as the American Trafficking Institute. I produce www.blogtalkradio.com/stopsextrafficktalk, and the magazine "Sanity Today". I also help investigators and the authorities with sex trafficking cases, and families help their loved ones leave the streets. Currently I'm organizing www.boycottsnoop.com to demand an acknowledgment of the damage that was done to women during his 2003 tour and www.pimpalert.com to help caught pimps who are dangerous and on the streets. Our book on the history of this field "Anatomy of a Movement" is almost done.